In any sane clime, the mere mention of the name Samuel Ortom should evoke disgust, disdain, and despair. His eight-year misadventure as governor of Benue state between 2015-2023 can best be described as the lowest any state in Nigeria had descended to.
Samuel Ortom remains a reference point for poor judgement, mischief, dismal performance in office, inhumanity to his fellow man and bankruptcy of thought. He is an example of what a leader should never be.
Ortom and all that he represents was swept away in 2023 for exactly the above reasons. Here was a man who refused to pay salaries for years citing paucity of funds yet grew his private businesses from petty trading centers to bohemian conglomerates. This is a man who became the sole supplier of plastic tables and chairs from his factories to primary schools in the state and yet refused to pay primary school teachers.
When Ortom held sway as governor, the Benue University Teaching Hospital was a processing site for patients who ended up in mortuaries. Roads were not his priority. When he suddenly realized at the twilight of his misrule that the absence of roads was a dent on his already tarnished reputation, he began to surface dress a few meters of roads in Makurdi and Gboko . He brought in 4 governors at a point to commission a 400 meter link road in Makurdi.
Ortom once boasted that he had retired Senator George Akume from politics. He did so many things to reduce the current SGF according to right thinking members of our society.
For instance, Ortom taped two conversations with Senator Akume where he called him unprintable names and even blackmailed him over what he calls “unresolved matters” in the EFCC. Ortom said our SGF was a Fulani slave. He called his followers eaters of crumbs. This is no surprise because at the time, he was eating from the chunk of Benue.
Ortom turned Benue into a fiefdom of himself and his family members. His relations now parade themselves in exotic cars with battalions of gun wielding security men around them.
Perhaps what can be described as ortom’s unkindest cut was the mockery he made of pensioners in the state. He derisively referred to them as dead people.
The irony is that before he was sent packing from Government House, Ortom caused it to be passed by the Benue State House of Assembly a criminal pension bill for himself and included past governors as an afterthought. In that bill, Ortom was to enjoy the salary of the Governor for life.
He was entitled to palatial mansions, including the hundreds he had acquired to be maintained by the State. He was entitled to fully paid medical leaves and holidays abroad. Ortom was entitled to four brand-new cars every four years for life. Thank God, this nonsense was thrashed by Governor Hyacinth Alia.
Ortom once called our Party the APC a Fulani Party. Ortom’s Fulani rhetoric was his only sustaining pillar in power. He could not point to any visible projects. His airport project which he flagged off with fanfare became an audio project. His Mbatiav cement project by his admission was a 419 project.
None of the MOUs he signed from his meaningless global junkets including to countries like Cameroon, Belarus, and Benin Republic came to fruition. Ortom’s eight years were a mere occupation of space and time. Zero impact.
This is the same man now being courted by politicians because he suits their purpose of disrupting the revolutionary changes taking place in Benue. Ortom is now the cannon folder to discredit the regular payment of pensions, salaries, and allowances.
He is now the beautiful bride for those who detest the fact that Benue is undergoing rapid transformation in infrastructure. Ortom is now the melting pot against the restoration of the state as the Agricultural hub of the country.
Under Ortom, Makurdi was the darkest state capital at night. Today, people forget to put their headlamps on because the capital is now properly illuminated.
What are these people thinking? Do they think the people of the state are so dumb as to forget Ortom’s pains this soon? Mention to any pensioner that Ortom is now their beautiful bride and watch their reaction.
People are entitled to hold their political grudges and express their personal disappointments but to do so using the Ortom banner is the new low.
Sir Tersoo Kula, MNIPR
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Benue State.
